Experts at the 70th Annual Meeting of the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology, held in Bochum, exchanged information on newly discovered resistances. ‘Specifically, resistance against a class of antibiotics that has, so far, always been viewed as a reserve appears to be developing more intensively than previously assumed,’ explained Professor Sören Gatermann, congress president and…
Partners who could hardly be further apart – yet have a lot in common – have united to fight resistant pathogens. The International Consortium for Anti-Infective Research (iCAIR) is based in Germany and Australia – separated by nearly 16,000 km as the crow flies. This has not stopped the research cooperation from achieving its objectives: the development of new agents against infections.
Beta-lactam antibiotics, including penicillin, are one of the most widely used classes of antibiotics in the world. Though they’ve been in use since the 1940s, scientists still don’t fully understand what happens when this class of drugs encounters bacteria. Now, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have elucidated how an enzyme helps bacteria rebound from damage inflicted by…
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Nosopharm, a biotechnology company based in Lyon, France, are part of an international team reporting on the discovery of a new class of antibiotics. The antibiotic, first identified by Nosopharm, is unique and promising on two fronts: its unconventional source and its distinct way of killing bacteria, both of which suggest the compound…
Imagine a small paper device that can rapidly reveal from a drop of blood whether an infection is bacterial or viral. The device could help reduce the overuse of antibiotics – which kill bacteria, not viruses. Misuse of antibiotics has led to antimicrobial resistance, a growing global public health issue. Senior biomedical engineering students at Rutgers University–New Brunswick came up with…
A major summit meeting in London, Great Britain, has seen politicians, doctors, scientists, farmers and other experts come together in a bid to tackle the growing global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis. Among these experts was Dame Sally Davies, England’s Chief Medical Officer, who described AMR as a ‘problem without a face’ because most patients are not told they have a resistant…
Mologic Ltd, which develops powerful, personalised diagnostics to improve the lives of patients, and Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (Fraunhofer CAP), a world-leading centre in the field of applied laser research and development, announced they are working together to develop a rapid, point-of-care test to immediately diagnose bacterial urinary tract infections (UTIs) and any associated…
Nurses have a distinctive and crucial role in the development and implementation of sound health policy,’ according to Annette Kennedy, President of the International Council of Nurses, which represents 135 National Nurses Associations and around 17 million nurses worldwide.
WHO’s first release of surveillance data on antibiotic resistance reveals high levels of resistance to a number of serious bacterial infections in both high- and low-income countries. WHO’s new Global Antimicrobial Surveillance System (GLASS) reveals widespread occurrence of antibiotic resistance among 500 000 people with suspected bacterial infections across 22 countries.
Bacteria are stealthy organisms. They can multiply in minutes and evolve to survive what we throw at them—including antibiotics. The World Health Organization calls antibiotic resistance “one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today.” Each year, about 2 million people in the United States become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to…
Bacteria not only develop resistance to antibiotics, they also can pick it up from their rivals. In a recent publication, Researchers from the Biozentrum of the University of Basel have demonstrated that some bacteria inject a toxic cocktail into their competitors causing cell lysis and death. Then, by integrating the released genetic material, which may also carry drug resistance genes, the…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is announcing a new approach to get critical updates regarding antibiotics and antifungal drugs to health care professionals as part of an overall effort to combat antimicrobial resistance. The agency created a website that will provide direct and timely access to information about when bacterial or fungal infections are likely to respond to a specific drug.…
DNAe, the inventor of semiconductor-based genomic analysis technologies, and the developer of a new, game-changing test for bloodstream infections that can lead to sepsis announced new data on its test for bloodstream infections, LiDia BSI. The data demonstrates the ability of the LiDia BSI closed cartridge-based test to rapidly identify low levels of bacterial and fungal pathogens and resistance…
During our European Hospital interview with specialist in microbiology, virology and infection epidemiology Beniam Ghebremedhin MD, from the University Hospital Wuppertal, spoke about the impact of migration on infections, and ways to tackle the problem of multiresistant pathogens. ‘There is a lack of specialists in infectious diseases, for direct patient care on hospital wards as well as in…
Antibiotic resistant bacteria lead to infections that are difficult to treat, particularly in hospitals. Multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli bacteria which have developed special enzymes that render antibiotics ineffective frequently cause such infections. DZIF scientists from Gießen University examined these bacteria more precisely and discovered a strain of Escherichia coli that has been…
Multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) are keeping infection specialists worldwide on their toes. One of these specialists travelled all the way from Leipzig to India to gain insights in one of the sources of the problem.
For years, medical investigators have tried and failed to develop vaccines for a type of staph bacteria associated with the deadly superbug MRSA. But a new study by Cedars-Sinai investigators shows how staph cells evade the body’s immune system, offering a clearer picture of how a successful vaccine would work.
Antimicrobial resistance mortality is set to surpass cancer and traffic-related deaths by 2050, according to the UK National Health Service (NHS).
Genes do not exist in isolation. So far, little has been known about how the position of a gene on a chromosome affects its evolution.
The association of biofilms with multi-drug resistance has highlighted the need for further understanding of biofilms and for anti-biofilm strategies.
Hospital-acquired infections are both a cause of and contribute to resistance, but a new technology can help.
Ares Genetics GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Curetis GmbH and a developer of pioneering solutions for the detection of genetic resistances in pathogens, announced that the project "GEAR - Predicting Antibiotic Resistances with Genetic Data" has been awarded in the competition "Landmarks in the Land of Ideas".
A study examining the impact of antibiotics prescribed for nearly 1500 adult patients admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital found that adverse side effects occurred in a fifth of them, and that nearly a fifth of those side effects occurred in patients who didn’t need antibiotics in the first place.
While new agents to fight virulent pathogens are in the pipeline, a new study pinpoints where a recent addition is already being applied in the clinic.
Scientists in the UK have developed a new model that will help to advance the study of resistance to antibiotics.